Today is Heather’s birthday. I considered painting her something but… “Oh. A painting. How novel.” (She’d never be that mean, but that’d certainly be a reasonable reaction)!

Sometime last week she asked me if I was going to get her a pony. So I decided to use this as an opportunity to force myself to break out of my comfort zone and make something that I wouldn’t otherwise.

Each tooth took about 35 minutes. After I made the first four, I moved on to the head.

I took a break from the more complicated parts early in to make three of the four legs.

The hardest part was getting the shapes and angles of the head and neck.

I saved the mane and tail for last. They turned out way better than I ever sort of thought that they could.

“Gift Horse.” 9/4/13. Fabric, thread, pillow stuffing. 13×21″ (height and length).

I considered using a pattern, but decided it’d be better to just work from scratch.

The only guide/reference I used was a photograph of an actual horse.

I made it over the course of four days.

It’s entirely handsewn. The only tools I used were the needle and a little bit of glue (for the nostrils and pupils).

In all, it was just over fourteen hours of sewing.

I’m really happy that I followed through with this and I think she likes it, but – somewhere around the seven hour mark – I started to wonder if this was really just a sweet gesture or maybe an indication of serious emotional problems. Seven hours is a long time to spend on a birthday gift. And fourteen or fifteen hours is an even longer time. Or am I wrong? Is that a (relatively) normal undertaking?

And now it occurs to me that I’m suddenly concerned with what’s “normal.” And I’m worrying about whether or not I have serious emotional problems…

Which makes me smile. Of course I have serious emotional problems! And – as for normal – well…

Thursday was Angie’s birthday so – yesterday – we did a dual birthday trip to Alligator Farm in St. Augustine. (Check me out: goin’ out to do normal things like a normal person). There’s hope for me yet. Concerns resolved!

White alligator. 1 of 12 in the world.

Evil asian crocodile.

Really fat alligator.

Really strange alligator.

Little gator hangout.

Saltwater crocodile. Funny looking girl.

The “little” ones in this picture are not little at all.

Heather is a cute nerd.